Comments please

Having presented my site to the web design class (and made a few amendments at their suggestion) I decided to sent it out to the great unwashed for some impartial, potential user, feedback. As the site is aimed at children, and home activities I sent it to a 10 year old boy who I am in regular e-mail contact with (it's ok, he's related to me), and two different parents with children aged from 8 to 14. This blog is their feedback, in full, followed by what I will take as action points, and what comments I have chosen not to act on.

Feedback from my first cousin once removed, age 10:

I love your website and I thought the idea of a lab Kitchen was a really terrific idea.

I liked the egg test best and the speed boat test was interesting!

The only thing that I thought was to complicated was the "Whats the silence" I couldn't understand it very well.

I hope you apreshiate my feed back 

PS I had summer dance day yesterday, it was great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Action points: Have an option after 'what's the science' of either Primary or GCSE, this could also be done by adding some direction in the 'About' page encouraging discussion of ideas.

Feedback from parent A:

Very good, I''m sure that it will impress!

You asked for comments so here are my impressions. As usual I'm being picky.

Safety page:

If  colour of the brown paper background was a little less strong it would make the type easier to read. (Also applies to Science and About pages.)

The first line implies that being dangerous is fun.

Perhaps “Science is fun but it can also be dangerous” would be better.

About page:

Re navigation tips – ingredients pics are not roll overs they are click ons.

Roll overs are when a pop-up appears as you hover over an area as on the other pages.

Eggs page:

Something wrong here – All pictures vanish unless I hover over the first picture: 

Speed boat page:

I don’t feel that density and pressure is an explanation for surface tension in liquids.

Told you I was being picky!

Action points: Change safety page text as suggested, change the link on the speed boat page.

Other comments:
Changing the background / text contrast in the text pages - I am not going to do this as I do not want black text, this is a style preference, and I am using a dark background as this is a freely available image. If I had time to take my own images I would use a lighter brown paper sample.
Eggs page - for some reason the main page image is not loading, just the roll over image, I'm not sure how to fix this, but it seems to load fine generally so maybe a firewall issue with this user?

Feedback from parent B:

Here's my comments on your website so far. However I have only looked at it for a short time, say 20 minutes, on my mobile (incl diverting to BBC science). Plus a quick look here on laptop, to see if it looks different. 

THE LOOK
Overall my impression is of a site that would be very attractive in a playful / learning setting. It would certainly attract kids and their parents and other associated adults. It would also be a nice resource for teachers, playgroup leaders, grandparents and responsible babysitters. I love the style with its brown paper background, roughly drawn arrows, watercolour sketch and handwriting font: they clearly set the work in the "fun arts & crafts" arena. Actually, I saw you mention this in your blog but would beware of using the words "craft" or "crafty" rather than "arts & crafts". as they convey different meanings. The look should appeal to children and learners of any age. It would be nice to test this. The fact that kids are learning during a fun interactive experience is the big plus for adults. 

I really like the sparse use of text. The excellent design means it's not needed and the result is a very user friendly experience.  

Your site loaded fine on my mobile and would make a very nice APP. (IDEA: commercialise the work! Optimise for both i-phone and android. Google.com has an "App Developer" section and lets you upload for free while sharing any profits! It could be a link on MUMSNET. Call it KIDSFUN?)

I liked the visual "post-its" for the menu. They added to the non-serious feel. I liked the arrows instead of sequence instructions like "next" or "step two".

I liked the simple english which made it easier to read. 

I liked the "Kids Cookery Recipes" style too. Its one kids are familiar with and they know that the results equal fun. Brown paper, as often used instead of greaseproof paper, reinforced that look. 

THE CONTENT

I found the site really high on design and appropriately low on content given the intended audience. 

Re Titles
The experiment titles are nice and snappy. But for consistency and sense, would "Celery Straws" work better for #3? I expected it to make straw at first!

Re (lack of) Instructions.
I thought some pop-ups would be good to give quantities of ingredients, time for boiling etc. But I see you have now added rollovers. Anyone who wants more content can use the rollovers on the "ingredients" pics or use the links. Perhaps how to find the rollovers could be mentioned on the "About" page?

Re "Sivery Eggs"
On my mobile I thought that the bowl of water picture actually showed a broken egg with its yolk!

Perhaps a final link to "additional experiments if you liked this one" would be nice.  

Re "ABOUT" Page
Should the "About" page mention suggested ages? Perhaps a "Recommended Age" tag could be added to each experiment. I think that a form like "All ages from n yrs" would be more likely to encourage teenagers or other late learners, like me.

RE "The Science" Link on Silvery eggs
The point of the "Emulsifers" link provided, may be that the carbon residue has oil in it which repels the water - but I did not really get it. How does the mirroring effect happen? Is this the right page to go to? 

Re "RAINBOW WATER"
I liked this experiment that produced a "ph indicator", although I only worked out what it offered when I read "The Science". The illustration of the result did not quite live up to the expectations of the title as I could not see the different colours clearly on my mobile or laptop monitor screen. I could only see they were red, green and purple when I zoomed in. Could you include a yellow result liquid for a clearer rainbow result? 

THE FUNCTIONALITY

Could "ABOUT" mention using the "Back Button" on one's browser to get back to the experiments from extrenal links? 

As the site is all about communicating science and stimulating learners to search / discover answers to their questions, should "The Science" mention that kids could ask the adults present, including teachers, to provide them? Or could you suggest another way to "collective discovery" like kids using networking and "collected cleverness" (nice phrase from blog) in classroom brainstorm sessions? Perhaps these group situation ways of getting answers is not the intent, but it probably could be included.  

THE RESULT

I learnt a lot and definitely wanted more! I'm going to do all these experiements as soon as I have time. The beetroot growing in the graden will provide the "Indicator" water when its ready. I found myself exploring the BBC science website you provided for further detail. This was a good consequence of the learning trick you are pulling. However, the bad side is that it's easy to leave the experiment, and very possibly not return or find one's way back! An extra help to solve getting lost elsewhere could be the use of a memorable name for the site like KIDSFUN repeated on every page so that you could always google your way back. Losing readers online is always an issue when adding links.

At first I wanted you to add byelines to each experiment title saying for instance "Rainbow Water - How to make a homemade acidity indicator" - but I guess that would have taken the old fashioned teaching route of providing answers first. Your approach takes more time but is actually more interactive and engaging. 

I think your visual and interactive site will communicate the science learning much better than the pure text based approach. The fact that learners will actually use their hands, feel and smell the results will reinforce what they learnt from their reading. The low text content of the site especially helps it to work well for people without much reading experience, like younger children, immigrants and slower learners.

Action points: Make all suggested changes to 'about' page, change link on eggs experiment, add some text suggesting discussion of science with adults, teachers, or other children.

Other comments:
Change to Celery experiment title - due to the way I have built this image, and my limited time I will not change this at the moment, but may do when I have more time in the future.
Additional experiments if you liked this one - A great idea for when the site grows, possibility to link up similar experiments.
Results picture on 'rainbow water' - This image is poor quality as I had to use my phone for the photography. I cannot get a better home image before hand in, but it is something to change in the future.
App idea / commercialization - Nice idea, maybe a thought for the future.